Hello all, I was just browsing around looking for some nice horseshoes and stumbled upon the Horseshoe Tour, and I must say I'm impressed, I had no idea there was any kind of tour out there for horseshoes. I guess I'm just curious to know how to get started on my journey to being the Tour Champion, I've played a lot in my life and I think if I practiced hard I might be able to compete and maybe kick a couple butts! What do I have to do to qualify? I see you have a tournament in Erie, PA coming up, is that something I could still get in, I don't live too far from there, might be fun to meet you all!

This will be the official forum topic for anything related to 2016 Eastern Nationals... Please ask any questions regarding this tournament here in this topic. We will answer ASAP. Also, feel free to comment on anything related to the tournament here, as always.

So far, the entries are beginning to stream in nicely. We're expecting one of our highest entries ever in a Horseshoe Tour Tournament... count on seeing a lot of your horseshoe friends at this one and count on making a few new ones too!

I want to thank all the people that worked so hard getting the courts dried up after the rain on Friday. The people of Clarksville should be proud of there facilities they are super. There wasn't any rain the rest of the weekend and things turned out great. Something I would like to discuss is after you have your 4 player field fixed for Sunday why not let the loser of the first round play each other for 3rd and 4 place. It wouldn't make the tournament run any longer and the loser from the first round would get to play at least 2 more games. Just something to think about.

I've recently had inquiries about why the 40' players entry list for the upcoming Newberry, SC tournament is so much less than the 30' players list. In fact, some of the people asking about it were 40' players who were on the fence about coming to the tournament and were weary to enter because of so few entries in the division. Well, this low number can easily be explained...

Actually, this happens for almost all of our tournaments, it's just way more noticeable for the first one on the schedule each season because those entries are posted up there for months in advance compared to the other tournaments that only have their entry list up for a few weeks prior to the tournament. The fact is, for the past few seasons, we have changed to where we only post paid entries on this list and for unknown reasons, we always get a ton of 40' entries at the last minute, compared to 30' foot players who very often enter weeks and months ahead of time. Our best guess is that 40' players are all men of working age who need to take leave from their jobs to attend and often don't know until the last minute whether they can get the days off work needed to compete in a tournament. Whereas, the 30' players are commonly non-working people, often retired or non-working by choice, and can plan much farther ahead for tournament play.

In the end, it almost always works out to be groups of nearly even sizes. Often, the 40' division has more players when it's all said and done. From what we know of the players who've semi-committed to Newberry but haven't paid yet, it looks like it will work to be a normal Horseshoe Tour tournament, with about the same number of entries in both divisions and a typical size Open Division as well. Unfortunately, we can't post those players' names on the list until they are paid. Overall, we expect this to be the largest number of entries ever at this location, so for those of you who might be worried about what you see posted on the web, well, don't give it another thought... This is sure to be one of our best events of the season, as it always is... we are very confident in this!

For a Horseshoe Tour Tournament game to qualify for the Big Game/Points Challenge, it must...

1) be pitched during any round of a tour event.
2) be pitched by players in the 40’ or 30’ divisions only. (Open division is not included)
3) exceed 12 ringers
4) also exceed a player’s entering NatStat ringer percentage.

Perfect Games (30 ringers):
Perfect games may be pitched by any player during any round of a Tour event, and will be rewarded $100.

Notes:
All six tournament sites are participating in the Big Game/Points Challenge at some level.
Big Game points will accumulate all season long, and players will be paid via check once the final tournament is completed and all season records are checked and verified for accuracy. Updated summary reports showing Big Game/Points standings after each event during the year will be posted online at http://www.thehorseshoetour.com. Players are expected to monitor their own results and immediately report any possible discrepancies to Ron Taylor at hawgjaw47@gmail.com

The first tournament of our 2016 season is in Newberry, SC on April 16-17. There is a number of activities in Newberry this year, starting with the player reception on Friday evening, the hot dog contest at Bubba's (details to be announced later), to the "Pork in the Park" festival on Saturday. It's time to start thinking about getting your entries in for this tournament, as you know, we list players as they enter in all our events, so the sooner you get yours in, the sooner we can get it on the entry list. Remember also, that you can enter any event of the year, at any time, we just have to have it 10 days prior to that event. Actually, it's interesting that our first entry of the year was from Utah, and that is the last tournament on our schedule. If you plan on participating in Newberry, or any of our events, don't wait to book your hotel room at the host hotel, remember, at some sites the number of rooms are limited, and Newberry is one of them because of the proximity of the hotel. It's located centrally for all the activities of the weekend.